I didn’t realize how much my daughter’s lip tie affected her until she was home, recovering from oral surgery. When she was born she was a champion eater. She has lips that even the Kardashian sisters would crave. They fish-lipped around my areola beautifully from day one. It wasn’t until she was older that we realized there was a problem.
I didn’t suffer from blocked milk ducts, mastitis, cracked or bleeding nipples, or a lowered milk supply. My baby didn’t suffer from lack of weight gain or have difficulty latching or any of the many varied symptoms that can lead to a lip or tongue tie diagnosis.
I didn’t know until my daughter was 2 1/2 and having oral surgery to put crowns on her front teeth that her lip tie was actually causing her harm. You can read more about that story here. All I know is that when she came out of surgery she could smile. Her smile didn’t look forced as it had since she was a baby.
A friend of mine recently when through the ringer when her son had lip and tongue tie issues. The problem is that it so often goes undiagnosed. The symptoms can be so varied from mother to baby that unless you are aware of it as a possible diagnosis you’d never think to ask.
Clipping a tongue or lip tie is SUCH a simple procedure. There are no nerve endings or blood in the tissue effected so it’s as easy as a snip of sterile scissors. The hard part is being given a correct diagnosis and finding a practitioner who’s trained to do it.
The practice can be done by a pediatric dentist, an ears, nose and throat specialist or a pediatrician. You have to FIND someone to do it and when you are nursing a baby who is causing you to bleed or have clogged milk ducts it can be torture to endure. Once the procedure is complete you have to retrain your baby to nurse properly. This can take days or a couple of weeks.
Here is a picture of my friend’s son’s lip AND tongue tie looked like. She sent a picture to a doctor in Portland who was willing to do a diagnosis just by seeing the image. She didn’t realize he also had a tongue tie, but the way his tongue is dimpled in the middle revealed that was also the case. Then she drove three hours with her son so the three minute long correction could be made. Totally worth it!
If a lip or tongue tie isn’t caught in the infancy stage it can cause speech impediments or lead to the need for surgery later in life as it did for my friend Melody. Her issues never effected nursing. She had some speech therapy in kindergarten, but she wasn’t diagnosed with an actual problem until high school. By that time she had to have a frenectomy because the tug and pull on the bone ridge in her mouth was weakening the bone and causing it to narrow and for her teeth to become loose.
I honestly can’t believe how many friends I have that have been affected by this issue. If you having troubles breastfeeding take a moment and consider if this may be part of the problem. All we can do is do our best with the knowledge that’s before us. So, google images, find a Facebook group, talk to your pediatrician and ask your friends.
“I firmly believe we have to advocate for ourselves and each other when it comes to health issues. We have to go with our guts, if something doesn’t seem right don’t stop researching on our own, asking friends, seeking answers from others with similar experiences, etc. there are answers out there, but they rarely come from one doctor. Rather from a collective pool of knowledge.” Melody Olsen
Here are some stories from Mom’s advocating for a proper diagnosis:
My son was diagnosed with a tongue tie at less than a day old. It was clipped at 10 days [of age] but reattached. His tongue and lip tie were both laser corrected at a periodontist at 16 months. He is 3.5 now and doing well. ~Photo credit and comments: Brittany Land
When my son was born, his lip tie was not noticed by doctors, despite him struggling to breastfeed in the hospital and losing one pound of his birth weight. I didn't notice he had a lip tie until he was a year and a half. I was very upset that it was never noticed, and that he struggled so much just to eat. It all could have been prevented it his pediatrician would have just simply looked. We took him to his pediatrician and they referred us to ENT( Ear Nose and Throat.) They told us they would not cut his lip tie unless he was sedated in the hospital (general anesthesia) My husband and I declined. He is now almost 3 and is in speech therapy. He has issues eating certain foods. He goes to the dentist in August so we will see what they have to say about it all. Photo credit and comments: Eleasha Marie
Dr Levinkind in London UK is amazing! My son had his lip tie cut at 2 days old by the midwife in hospital. I had constant trouble for months with his feeding. I breastfed him until 16 months but something was never right. I saw on facebook one day when he was around 11 months about lip tie. Never heard of it before. Spoke to a GP and a dentist, they said they don't do anything as it doesn't cause issues. Well, it was causing issues with speech and tooth growth! So I looked into Dr. Levinkind. Raised the money to see him, around £350, he saw my son the next week and graded his lip tie grade 3. 1 being lowest 4 being highest. He lasered it and within an hour my son was breastfeeding perfectly. It healed within around 10 days and he has been perfect since. No problems at all. I urge anyone who has been told they have to put them to sleep or do a big operation to correct it, to look into laser correction. Best thing I did! Photo credit and comments: Stacy Bridger
My newborn son was gaining weight perfectly so I kept getting dismissed by healthcare professionals. My nipples were bleeding, chomped flat, and the scab was ripping off at every feed, which was every hour in those early newborn days. I ended up getting vaso spasms in my breasts from the nipple trauma. My pediatrician still said revision was a fad and it would get better. By 2 weeks old I sent a well known ENT a picture of my sons posterior tongue tie and he got my son in for a revission within 2 days, even though he was booked out for 2 months. Instantly my breasts vaso spasms decreased until they went away completely and my nipples healed. The ENT revised my other son 2 years prior and had the same exact issue and story. Rewind 6 years ago my daughter's was undiagnosed and has the same posterior tie as her brothers. She was gaining weight perfect until my breasts regulated and were no longer pouring the milk in her mouth. She was diagnosed as failure to thrive, nursed every 2 hours for a year and we both cried a lot. I'm so glad ties are being recognized now. Here is a picture of my now 7 week olds posterior tongue tie at 2 weeks old. The ENT also explained most lip ties correlate with a posterior tongue tie and both boys also had their lip tie lasered. Photo credit and comments: Jessica Garcia
We had nursing pain from the beginning, but since I'm a first time mom, I didn't really know that it wasn't supposed to hurt that bad. After I noticed her lip tie, I did research and took her to the doctor. The doctor was not very supportive and thought I was over reacting and exaggerating my level of pain. We had a lower frenectomy using scissors done at 3 1/2 months. They refused to do her lip tie without sedation. Our nursing relationship continued since she wouldn't take a bottle. The pain was just a little better, but not much. We nursed often, but the weight gain slowed down since my milk supply was decreased. At 8 1/2 months we finally found a dentist to do the lip tie without sedation. It turns out there was also a posterior tongue tie. Things really started to turn around at around 9 months. My milk supply increased and I had practically no pain. It took us a while to relearn how to nurse the correct way. My daughter is now 11 months and loves nursing and gets so excited when I say "Do you want some milk?". I feel like we were both cheated out of a good nursing experience at the beginning, but we're loving it now. Photo credit and comments: Marci Bieker
